By Jennie

This Sunday ABC will air the 82nd Annual Academy Awards. This year marks an expansion of the number of Best Picture nominees, from five to 10 (five has been the standard number of nominees since the 1940s; before then the number of Best Picture nominees varied, with sometimes as many as 12 pictures nominated). You can see the nominees here.

Will you be watching? Any pictures or nominees you’ll be rooting for (or against) particularly?

I’ve only seen two of the Best Picture nominees, Up and Up in the Air. I liked both quite a bit, but since the front runners seem to be Avatar and The Hurt Locker, I’m not counting on either snagging a win. I’ve seen three of the Best Actor nominees: Jeff Bridges, George Clooney and Colin Firth. Bridges seems to be the favorite, and I’ll be happy for him if he wins, but my vote would go to Firth for his heartbreaking performance in A Single Man. I’ve only seen one performance each in the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor categories, both from The Last Station. Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren gave great performances as Leo Tolstoy and his high-strung wife; I would love to see Mirren win (though again, my favorites don’t seem to be the front runners: I believe the battle is between Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock for Best Actress, and Christopher Waltz seems to be favored for Best Supporting Actor for Inglourious Basterds, though I’ve also heard good things about Stanley Tucci’s performance in The Lovely Bones). Mo’nique is heavily favored for the Best Supporting Actress award for Precious; I haven’t seen that, but if I had my druthers I’d give the award to Anna Kendrick for her work in Up in the Air.

I tend not to have much of an opinion on the Best Director award except that it seems to me it should go to whoever directs the Best Picture winner. The buzz is all about a battle between ex-spouses James Cameron (director of Avatar) and Kathryn Bigelow (director of The Hurt Locker). Cameron’s arrogance is tremendously unattractive to me, and it would be awesome to finally have a woman win Best Director. So I’ll root for Bigelow, even though I haven’t seen her film.

Please share your Oscar-night plans (hosting/attending any parties?) and your favorites below!